this is an abc news special. an election year like no other. with record-shattering voter turnout. >> a vote for republicans is a vote for safe communities, great jobs and a limitless future for all americans. >> we choose open over fear, science over fiction and, yes, we choose truth over lies. it's time to stand up and take back our democracy. >> the final presidential debate starts right now. live from belmont university in nashville, tennessee, and abc news election headquarters, now reporting chief anchor, george stephanopoulos. >> and welcome back to our special coverage of tonight's final presidential debate. just moments away now. and that is the scene at belmont university in nashville. where president trump and vice

president biden will take the stage for 90 minutes and take questions from moderator kristen welker of nbc news. just 12 days to go in this election. almost 50 million americans have already voted. a sign of the times. in a presidential race transformed by the pandemic and a sign of how engaged americans are in this race. also, a warning sign for president trump. he's behind in the national polls right now and the key battleground states. the pool of undecided voters is shrinking by the day. he has to do something tonight to shake up this race. our chief white house correspondent jonathan karl is on the scene in nashville. >> and george, when the president is behind, he goes on the attack. i expect that is what will happen here. i think he will go after joe biden in very personal ways, going after his family, going after his son hunter biden's business dealings, regardless of whether. >> reporter: not there are any questions that lead him in that direction. i think he will do that. the president complained about the fact that the microphone will be muted for some of the answers, for some of this.

but his edadvisers think that wl be good for the president. what they really want to come out of this debate is for joe biden to make a mistake. and they believe that that is more likely to happen if the president isn't constantly interrupting him. >> right. they want to let joe biden talk and see what happens, if that happens. mary bruce, what is the biden team prepared for? >> well, joe biden's goal here tonight really is just to stay the course. he needs to avoid any big missteps. he needs to avoid giving the president any big openings here. he knows that donald trump is going to come after him with personal attacks against him and his family. they are braced for the fact that this debate could get ugly. and joe biden is going to push back against personal attacks but he really doesn't want to get into the mud with the president. that is easier said than done. but instead, joe biden's going here is really to stay laser focused on the president's handling of this pandemic and to try to talk directly to the american people. so, when trump comes after him, biden is going to argue, this isn't about his family, it's about your family. and what voters are looking for

in their next president. >> biden admitted he lost his temper a little more than he wanted to at the last debate. >> george, i have talked to biden's supporters who were not happy with the tone they heard from the former vice president. he was very blunt, often very harsh. at one point, he told the president of the united states to shut up. i think it will be interesting tonight to see if he softens his tone. >> okay, the debate is about to again. as we said, the moderator, kristen welker of nbc news. six big topics on the agenda tonight. fighting covid, race, national security, climate change and presidential leadership. let's go to kristen welker. good evening from belmont university in nashville, tennessee. i'm kristen welker of nbc news and i welcome you to the final 2020 presidential debate between president donald j. trump and former vice president joe biden. tonight's debate is sponsored by the commission on presidential

debate. it is conducted under health and safety protocols designed by the commission's health security adviser. the audience here in the hall has promised to remain silent, no cheers, boos or other interrupti interruptions, spent right now, as we welcome to the stage former vice president joe biden and president donald j. trump. >> and i do want to say a very good evening to both of you. this debate will cover six major topics. at the beginning of each section, each candidate will have two minutes uninterrupted to answer my first question. the debate commission will then turn on their microphone only when it is their turn to answer. and the commission will turn it off exactly when the two minutes

have expired. after that, both microphones will remain on, but on behalf of the voters, i'm going to ask you to please speak one at a time. the goal is for you to hear each other and for the american people to hear every word of what you both have to say. and so with that, if you're ready, let's start. and we will begin with the fight against the coronavirus. president trump, the first question is for you. the country is heading into a dangerous new phase. more than 40,000 americans are in the hospital tonight with covid, including record numbers here in tennessee. and since the two of you last shared a stage, 16,000 americans have died from covid. so, please be specific. how would you lead the country during this next stage of the coronavirus crisis? two minutes uninterrupted. >> so, as you know, 2.2 million people modeled out, were expected to die. we closed up the greatest economy in the world in order to fight this horrible disease that came from china.

it's a worldwide pandemic, it's all over the world. you see the spikes in europe and many other places right now. if you notice, the mortality rate is down 85%. the excess mortality rate is way down and much lower than almost any other country. and we're fighting it and we're fighting it hard. there is a spike. there was a spike in florida and it's now gone. there was a very big spike in texas, it's now gone. there was a very big spike in arizona, it's now gone. and there are some spikes and surges in other places, they will soon be gone. we have a vaccine that's coming. it's ready. it's going to be announced within weeks and it's going to be delivered. we have operation warp speed, which is the military is going to distribute the vaccine. i can tell you from personal experience that -- i was in the hospital. i had it. and i got better and i will tell you that i had something that they gave me, a therapeutic, i guess they would call it, some

people would say it's a cure, but i was in for a short period of time and i got better very fast or i wouldn't be here tonight and now they say i'm immune, for months or a lifetime, nobody's been able to say that, but i'm immune. more and more people are getting better. we have a problem that's a worldwide problem. this is a worldwide problem. but i've been congratulated by the heads of many countries on what we've been able to do, with the -- if you take a look at what we've done in terms of goggles and masks and gowns and everything else. and in particular, ventilators. we are now making ventilators all over the world, thousands and thousands a month, distributing them all over the world. it will go away and as i say, we're rounding the turn, we're rounding the corner. it's going away. >> okay. former vice president biden, to you, how would you lead the country out of this crisis, you have two minutes uninterrupted. >> 220,000 americans dead. you hear nothing else i say

tonight, hear this. anyone who is responsible for not taking control, in fact, not saying, i take no responsibility, initially, anyone who is responsibility for that many deaths should not remain as president of the united states of america. we're in a situation where there are a thousand deaths a day. a thousand deaths a day. and there are over 70,000 new cases per day. compared to what's going on in europe, as the new england medical journal said, they are starting from a very low rate, we're starting from a very high rate. the expectation is, we'll have another 200,000 americans dead between now and the end of the year. if we just wore these masks, the president's own advisers have told him, we could save 100,000 lives. and we're in a circumstance where the president thus far and still has no plan.

no comprehensive plan. what i would do is make sure we have everyone encouraged to wear a mask all the time. i would make sure we move in the direction of rapid testing, investing in rapid testing. i would make sure that we set up national standards as to how to open up schools and open up businesses so they can be safe and give them the where with all, the financial resources to be able to do that. we're in a situation now where the new england medical journal, one of the serious, most serious journals in the whole world, said for the first time ever that the, the way this president has responded to this crisis has been absolutely tragic. and so folks, i will take care of this, i will end this, i will make sure we have a plan. >> president trump, i'd like to follow up with you and your comments, you talked about taking a therapeutic, and you said a vaccine will be coming within weeks? >> yes. >> is that a kwarn tee? >> no, it's not a guarantee, but by the end of the year. i think it has a good chance.

two companies, i think within a matter of weeks and it will be distributed very quickly. >> can you tell us which companies? >> johnson & johnson is doing very well, moderna is doing very well, pfizer is doing well. we have numerous others. we have others that are working with other countries, in particular europe. >> let me follow up with you. you have said a vaccine is coming soon, within weeks now, your own officials say it could take into 2021 for enough americans to get vaccinated and even then, they say the country will be wearing masks and distancing into 2022. is your timeline realistic? >> no, i think my timeline is going to be more accurate. i don't know that they're counting on the military the way i do, but we have our generals lined up, one in particular that's the head of logistics and this is a very easy distribution for him. he's ready to go. as soon as we have the vaccine and we expect to have 100 million vials. >> vice president biden, your reaction, just 40% of americans say they would definitely agree

to take a coronavirus vaccine if it was approved by the government. what steps would you take to give americans confidence in a vaccine if it werepproved? >> make sure it is totally transparent. have the scientists of the world see it, know it, look at it. go through all the processes. and by the way, this is the same fell roe who told you this was going to end by easter last time, the same fellow that told you, don't worry, we're going to end this by the summer. we're about to go into a dark winter. a dark winter. and he has no clear plan and there's no prospect that there's going to be a vaccine available for the majority of the american people before the middle of next year. >> president trump, your reaction? >> i don't think we're going to have a dark winter at all. we're opening up our country. we've learned and studied and understand the disease, which we didn't at the beginning. when i closed and banned china from coming in, heavily infected and then ultimately europe, but china was in january. months later, he was saying i was -- now he's saying, i should

have, you know, moved quicker. but he didn't move quicker. he was months behind me. many months behind me. and frankly, he ran the h1n1 swine flu and it was a total disaster. far less lethal, but it was a total disaster. had that had this kind of numbers, 700,000 people would be dead right now. but it with us was a far less lethal disease. look, his own person who ran that for him, who, as you know, was his chief of staff, said it was catastrophic, it was horrible, we didn't know what we were doing. now he comes up and he tells us how to do this. also, everything that he said about the way -- every single move he said we should make, that's what we've done. we've done all of it. but he was way behind us. >> vice president biden, your response? >> my response is, he is senn phobic, but not because he shut down access from china. and he did it late, after 40

countries had already done that. in addition to that, he made sure we had 44 people that were in there, in china, trying to get to wuhan to determine what the source of it was, the president said in january, he said, no, he's being transparent, the president of china's being transpatient, ren owe him a debt of gratitude, we have to thank him. and then we started talking about using the defense act to go out and get whatever is needed out there to protect people and again, i go back to this. he had nothing -- he did virtually nothing and then he gets out of the hospital and he talks about this is -- don't worry, it's all going to be over soon. come on. there's not another serious scientist in the world who thinks it's going to be over soon. >> your reaction? >> i didn't say over soon. we're learning to live with it. we have no choice. we can't lock ourselves up in a basement like joe does. he has the ability to lock himself up, i don't know, he's obviously made a lot of money some place. but he has this thing about

living in a basement. people can't do that. by the way, i, as the president, couldn't do that. i'd love to put myself in the basement or in a beautiful room in the white house and go away for a year and a half until it disappears. i can't do that. and kirsten, every meeting i had, every meeting i had and i meet a lot of families, including gold star families and military families -- i had to meet them, i had to. it would have been horrible to have canceled everything. i said, you know, this is dangerous. and you catch it and, you know, i caught it, i learned a lot, i learned a lot, great doctors, great hospitals. and now i recovered. 99.9 of young people recover. 99% of people recover. we have to recover. we can't close up our nation. we have to open our schools and we can't close up our nation. or you're not going to have a nation. >> the cdc has said people can get sick with covid-19 and pass

it. vice president biden -- >> can i respond to that? >> 30 seconds, and then i have a question. >> number one, he says that we're, you know, we're learning to live with it. people are learning to die with it. you folks home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning. that man or wife going to bed tonight, reaching over to try to touch, out of habit, where their wife or husband was, is gone. learning to live with it? come on. we're dying with it because he's never said -- he said it's dangerous -- when is the last time -- it is really dangerous still? you tell the people it's dangerous now? what should they do about the danger? and you say, i take no responsibility. >> let me -- >> very quickly. >> i take full responsibility. it's not my fault that it came here, it's china's fault. and it's not joe's fault that it came here, either. it's china's fault. they kept it from going into the rest of china for the most part, but they didn't keep it from coming out to the world, including europe and ourselves. >> vice president biden? >> fact is that when we knew it

was coming, when it hit, what happened? what did the president say? he said, don't worry. it's going to go away. be gone by easter, don't worry. the warm weather. don't worry, maybe inject bleach, he said he was kidding when he said that, but a lot of people thought he was serious. a whole range of thing the president has said, even today, he thinks we are in control. we're about to lose 200,000 more people. >> president trump? >> look, perhaps just to finish this, i was kidding on that, but just to finish this, when i closed, he said i shouldn't have closed. and that went on for months. nancy pelosi said the same thing. she was dancing on the streets in chinatown in san francisco. but when i closed, he said, this is a terrible thing, i think he called me racist, even, and because i was closing it to china. now he says i should have closed it earlier. it just, joe, it doesn't -- >> i didn't say either of those things. >> you did. >> i talked about it in a

different context. it wasn't about closing the border to chinese coming to the united states. >> all right, i want to talk about both of your different strategies -- >> he thought i shouldn't have closed the border. that's obvious. >> do you want to respond to that quickly, vice president biden? >> no. >> let's talk about your different strategies towards dealing with this. mr. vice president you suggested you would support new shutdowns if scientists recommend it. what do you say to americans about the impact on the economy, the higher rates of hunger, depression, domestic and substance ap abuse outweighs the risk of exposure to the virus. >> i would say, i'm going to shut down the virus, not the country. it's his ineptitude that caused the country to have to shut down in large part, why biusinesses have gone under, why schools are closed, why so many people are concerned. those other concerns are real. that's why he should have been, instead of in a sand trap in his golf course, he should have been negotiating with nancy pelosi and the rest of the democrats and republicans about what to do

about the acts they were passing for billions of dollars to make sure people had the capacity. >> but you haven't ruled out more shutdowns. >> well, no. i'm not shutting down today, but there are -- look. you need standards. the standard is, if you have a reproduction rate in a community that's above a certain level, everybody says, slow up. more social distancing. do not open bars and do not open gymnasiums. do not open until you get this under control. under more control. but when you do open, give the people the capacity to be able to open and have the capacity to do it safely. for example, schools. schools, they need a lot of money to open. they need to deal with ventilation systems, more teachers, more pods. he's refused to support that money. at least up until now. >> let's talk about schools. president trump -- >> well, i think we have to respond. i appreciate that. all he talks about is shutdowns. forget about him. his democrats governors, cuomo in new york, you look at what's

going on in california, pennsylvania, north carolina, democrats -- democrats all, they're shut down so tight and they're dying. they're dying. and he supports all these people. all he talks about is shutdowns. no, we're not going to shut down. and we have to open our schools. and it's like, as an example, i have a young son, he also tested positive. by the time i spoke to the doctor the second time, he was fine. it just went away. young people -- i guess it's their immune system. >> let me follow up with you, president trump. you demanded schools open in person and insist they can do it safely, but just yesterday, boston became the latest city to move its public school system entirely online after a coronavirus spike. what is your message to parents who worry that sending their children to school will endanger not only their kids but also their teachers and families? >> i want to open the schools. the transmittal rate to the teachers is very small. but i want to open the schools. we have to open our country. we're not going to have a country. you can't do this.

we can't keep this country closed. this is a massive country with a massive economy. people are losing their jobs, they're committing suicide. there's depression, alcohol, drugs, at a level that nobody's ever seen before, there's abuse, tremendous abuse. question ha we have to open our country. i've said it often. the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. and that's what's happening. and he wants to close down -- he'll close down the country if one person in our massive bureaucracy says we should close it down. >> vice president biden, your response? >> simply not true. we ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. we ought to be able to safely open, but they need resources to open. you need to be able to, for example, if you're going to open a business, have social distancing within the business. you need to have, if you have a restaurant, you need to have plexiglass dividers so people cannot infect one another. you need to be in a position where you can take testing rapidly and know whether a person is, in fact, infected.

you need to be able to trace. you need to be able to provide all the resources that are needed to do this. and that is not inconsistent with saying that what -- we're going to make sure that we open safely. and by the way, all you teachers out there, not that many of you are going to die, so don't worry about it. so don't worry about it. come on. >> president trump -- >> i will say this. if you go and look at what's happened to new york, it's a ghost town. it's a ghost town. and when you talk about plexiglass, these are restaurants that are dying. these are businesses with no money. putting up plexiglass is unbelievably expensive. and it's not the answer. i mean, you're going to sit there in a cubicle wrapped around with plastic? these are businesses that are dying, joe. you can't do that to people. you just can't. take a look at new york and what's happened to my wonderful city for so many years, i loved it, it was vibrant. it's dying. everyone's leaving new york. >> take a look at what new york has done in terms of turning the

curve down in terms of the number of people dying. and i don't look at this in the way he does, blue states and red states. they're all the united states. and look at the states that are having such a spike in the coronavirus. they're the red states. they're the states in the midwest. they're the states in the upper midwest. that's where the spike is occurring significantly. but they're all americans. they're all americans. and what we have to do is say, wear these masks, number one, make sure we get the help that the businesses need, the money's already been passed to do that, it's been out there since the beginning of the summer. and nothing's happened. >> kristen, new york has lost more than 40,000 people. 11,000 people in nursing homes. when you say spike, take a look at what's happening in pennsylvania where they've had to close. take a look at what's happening with your friend in michigan, where her husband's the only one allowed to do anything. it's been like a prison. now, it was just ruled

unconstitutional. take a look pat north carolina. they're having spikes and they've been closed. and they're getting killed financially. we can't let that happen, joe. you can't let that happen. we have to open up and we understand the disease. we have to protect our seniors. we have to protect our elderly. we have to protect, especially, our seniors with heart problems and diabetes problems, and we will protect them. we have the best testing in the world by far. that's why we have so many cases. >> let me follow up before we move onto our next section, president trump. this week, you called dr. anthony fauci, quote, a disaster, you described him and other medical experts as, quote, idiots. if you are not listening to them, who are you listening to? >> i'm listening to all of them, including anthony. i get along very well with anthony. but he did say, don't wear a mask. he did say, as you know, this is not going to be a problem. i think he's a democrat, but that's okay, he said, this is not going to be a problem. we are not going to have a problem at all.

when joe says that, i said anthony fauci said, and others, and many others, and i'm not knocking him, nobody knew. look, nobody knew what this thing was. nobody knew where it was coming from, what it was -- we've learned a lot. but anthony said, don't wear masks, now he wants to wear masks. he also said, if you look back, exact words, here are his exact words, this is no problem, this is going to go away soon. so, he's allowed to make mistakes. >> vice president biden, your response, quickly, and we're going to move onto the next section. >> my response is that, think about what the president knew in january and didn't tell the american people. he was told this was a serious virus that spread in the air and it was much worse than -- much worse than the flu. he went on record and said to one of your colleagues, recorded, that, in fact, he knew how dangerous it was, but he didn't want to tell us. he didn't want to tell us because he didn't want us to panic. he didn't -- americans don't panic. he panicked. but guess what? in the meantime, we find out

"the new york times" the other day that, in fact, his folks went to wall street and said, this is really dangerous and a memo out of that meeting, not from his administration, but from some of the brokers said, sell short, because we got to get moving. it's a dangerous problem. >> well, this is one i haven't heard. the wall street one, i don't know, somebody went to wall street. you're the one that takes all the money from wall street. i don't take it. you have raised a lot of money. tremendous amounts of money. and every time you raise money, deals are made, joe. i could raise so much more money. as president and as somebody that knows most of those people, i could call the heads of wall street, the heads of every company in america, i would blow away every record, but i don't want to do that, because it puts me in a bad position. and then you bring up wall street? you shouldn't be bringing up wall street. because you're the one that takes the money from wall str t street, not me. i would blow away your records like you wouldn't believe. we don't need money. we have plenty of money. in fact, we beat hillary clinton with a tiny fraction of the money that she was able to -- >> average contribution, $43.

>> all right, we're going to move onto our next section, which is national security. and i do want to start with the security of our elections and some breaking news from overnight, just last night, top intelligence officials confirmed again that both russia and iran are working to influence this election. both countries have obtained u.s. voter registration information. these officials say. and iran sent intimidating messages to florida voters. this question goes to you, mr. vice president, what would you do to put an end to this threat? you have two minutes, uninterrupted. >> i made it clear and i ask everyone else to take the pledge. i made it clear that any country, no matter who it is, that interferes in american elections will pay a price. they will pay a price. it's been overwhelmingly clear this election, i won't even get into the last one, this election, that russia has been involved. china's been involved. and now we learn that iran is involved. they will pay a price if i'm

elected. they're interferes with american sovereignty. that's what's going on. they're interfering with american sovereignty. to the best of my dodge, i don't think the president's said anything to putin about it. i don't think he's said a word. i don't know why he hasn't said a word to putin about it. and i don't know what he's recently said to the iranians. my guess is he would be more outspoken with regard to the iranians. the point is this, folks. we're in a situation where we have foreign countries trying to interfere in the outcome of our election. his own national security adviser told him that what is happening with his buddy -- i will, his buddy, rudy giuliani, he's being used as a russian pawn. he's being fed information that is not true. and then what happens? nothing happens. and then you find out that everything that's going on here about russia is wanting to make sure that i do not get elected the next president of the united states because they know i know

them. and they know me. i don't understand why this president is unwilling to take on putin when he's actually paying bounties to kill american soldiers in afghanistan. when he's engaged in activities that are trying to destabilize all of nato. i don't know why he doesn't do it, but it's worth asking the question. why isn't that being done? any country that interferes with us will, in fact, pay a price because they're affecting our sovereignty. >> president trump, same question to you, let me ask the question, you're going to have two minutes to respond. for two elections in a row, there's been substantial interference from foreign adversaries. what would you to do put an end to this? >> well, let me respond to the first sport. joe got $3.5 million from russia and it came through putin because he was very friendly with the former mayor of moscow and it was the mayor of moscow's wife and you got $3.5 million, your family got $3.5 million and, you know, some day you're going to have to explain why did

you get -- i never got any money from russia. i don't get money from russia. now, about your thing last night, i knew all about that and through john, who is fantastic, dni, he said, the one thing that's common to both of them, they both want you to lose. because there has been nobody tougher to russia, between the sanctions, nobody tougher than me on russia. between the sanctions, between all of what i've done with nato. i've got the nato countries to put up an extra $130 billion, going to $420 billion a year. that's to guard against russia. i sold, while he was selling pillows and sheets, i sold tank busters to ukraine. there has been nobody tougher on russia than donald trump. and i'll tell you, they were so bad, they took over the submarine port, you remember that very well, during your term, during you and barack

obama, they took over a big part of what should have been ukraine, you handed it to them. but you were getting a lot of money from russia. they were paying you a lot of money. and they probably still are. but now, with what came out today, it's even worse. all of the emails, the emails, the horrible emails of the kind of money that you were raking in, you and your family, and joe, you were vice president when some of this was happening. and it should have never happened. and i think you owe an explain nation to the american people. why is it, somebody just had a news conference a little while ago who was essentially supposed to work with you and your family, but what he said was damning. and regardless of me, i think you have to clean it up and talk to the american people. maybe you can do it right now. >> vice president biden? you may respond. and then i do want to follow up on the election security. >> i have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life. we learned that this president paid 50 times the tax in china,

has a secret bank account with china, does business in china and, in fact, is talking about me taking money? i have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever, ever. number one. number two, this is a president, i released all of my tax returns. 22 years, go look at them. 22 years of my tax returns. you have not released a single solitary year of your tax returns. what are you hiding? why are you unwilling? the foreign countries are paying you a lot. russia's paying you a lot. china's paying you a lot. and your hotels and all your businesses all around the country. all around the world. and china's building a new road to a new golf course you have overseas. so, what's going on here? release your tax returns or stop talking about corruption. >> your response? >> first of all, i called my accountants, under audit, i'm going to release them as soon as we can, i want to do it and it will show how successful, how great this company is, but much

more importantly, people were saying $750, i asked them a week ago, i said, what did i pay? they said, sir, you prepaid tens of millions of dollars. i prepaid my tax. over the last number of years, tens of millions of dollars, i prepaid. because at some point, they think it's an estimate, they think i may have to pay tax, so i already prepaid it. nobody told me that. >> did your accountant -- >> excuse me. it wasn't written, when they write this, they keep talking about $750, which i think is a filing fee. but let me just tell you, i prepaid millions and millions of dollars in taxes. number one. number two, i don't make money from china. you do. i don't make money from ukraine. you do. i don't make money from russia. you made $3.5 million, joe. and your son gave you -- they even have a statement that we have to give 10% to the big man, you're the big man, i think, i don't know, maybe you're not.

you're the big man. your son said, we have to give 10% to the big man. joe, what is that all about? >> gentlemen, i want to -- >> i have to respond to this. >> i'm going to let you respond very quickly. you said you spoke to your accountant about releasing your taxes. do you know when you can release them? do you have a deadline? >> i get treated worse than the tea party got treated -- >> you don't have a time frame? >> deep down in the irs, they treat me horribly. we made a deal, it was all settled until i decided to run for president. i get treated very badly by the irs. very unfairly. but we had a deal all done. as soon as we're completed with the deal, i want to release it. but i have paid millions and millions of dollars and i -- it's worse than paying. i paid in advance. it's called prepaying your taxes. >> i want to ask you both about questions regarding your potential foreign entanglements and questions that have been raised to give you both a chance to talk about this more broadly. respond very quickly and i'll

get to my question. >> he's been saying this for four years. show us. just show us. stop playing around. you've been saying for four years you're going to release your taxes. nobody knows, mr. president. what they do know is you're not paying your taxes or you are paying taxes that are so low -- last time he said what he paid, he said, i only pay that little because i'm smart. i know how to game the system. come on. come on, folks. >> president trump, i want to get to two questions to both of you on this. >> sure. i was put through a phony witch hunt for three years. it started before i even got elected. they spied on my campaign, no president should ever have to go through what i went through. let me just say this. mueller and 18 angry democrats an fbi agents all over the place spent $48 million, they went through everything i had including my tax returns and they found absolutely no

collusion and nothing wrong. 48 million. i guarantee you, if i spent $1 million on you, joe, i could find plenty wrong, because the kind of things that you've done and the kind of moneys that your family has taken, i mean, your brother made money in iraq. millions of dollars. your other brother made a fortune. and it's all through you, joe. and they say you get some of it. and you do live very well. you have houses all over the place. you live very well. >> all right, gentlemen, let me just ask some questions about all of this broadly. vice president biden, there have been questions about the work your son has done in china and for a ukrainian energy company. in retrospect, but anything about those relationships inappropriate or unethical. >> nothing was unethical. here's the deal. with regarding ukraine, we had this whole question about whether or not, because he was on the board, i later learned, of burisma, a company, that i had somehow done something wrong, yet every single solitary person when he was going through his impeachment testifying under

oath who worked for him said i did my job impeccably. i carried out u.s. policy. not one single solitary thing was out of line. not a single thing. number one. number two, the guy who got in trouble in ukraine was this guy, trying to bribe the ukrainian government to say something negative about me, which they would not do and did not do, because it never, ever happened. my son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, china. i have not had -- the only guy that made money from china is this guy. the only one. nobody else has made money from china. >> by the way -- >> let me ask my question to you. >> just one thing. >> very quickly. >> his son didn't have a job for long time, was sadly no longer in the military service, i won't get into that, and he didn't have a job. as soon as he became vice president, burisma, not the best reputation in the world, i hear

they paid him 183,000 a month. listen to this. 183. and they gave him a $3 million up front payment. >> all right. >> and he had no energy experience. >> i'm going to let the vice president respond to that and i need to get to a question to you. >> no basis for that. everybody investigated that. nobody said anything he did was wrong in ukraine. >> okay, president trump, this is for you. since you took office, you have never divested from your business. you personally promoted your properties abroad. a report this week, which was referenced, does indicate that your company has a bank account in china. so, how can voters know that you don't have any foreign conflicts of interest? >> i have my bank accounts and they are all list and they're all over the place. i was a businessman doing business. the bank account you're referring to, which is -- everyone knows about it, it's listed. the bank account was in 2013, that's when it was. it was opened in -- it was closed in 2015, i believe. and then i decided, because i was going to do -- i was thinking about doing a deal in

china, like millions of other people, i was thinking about it, and i decided, i'm not going to do it, didn't like it, i decided not to do it, had an account open and i closed it. >> okay. >> excuse me. and then, unlike him, where he's vice president and he does business, i then decided to run for president after that. that was before. so, i closed itz befo before i r president, let alone became president. big difference. he's the vice president of the united states and his son, his brother and his other brother are getting rich. they are like a vacuum cleaner, they are sucking up money. >> okay, president trump, we need to move on. >> not true. >> i want to ask you, vice president biden, china. let's talk about china more broadly. there have, of course, president trump has said that they should pay for not being fully transparent in regards to the coronavirus. if you were president, would you make china pay and please be specific. >> what i would make china do is play by the international rules,

not like he has done. he has caused the deficit to china to go up, not down, with china. up, not down. we are making sure that in order to do business in china, you have to give all your intellectual property, you have to have a partner in china, 51%, we would not do that at all, number one. number two, we're in a situation where china would have to play by the rules internationally, as well. when i melt wit with xi when i vice president, he said, we're setting up air eye didentificat zones in the south china sea, you can't fly through them. i said, we're going to. you have to play by the rules. he embraces the thugs like in north korea and the chinese president and putin and others and he pokes his finger in the eye of all of our friends, all of our allies. we make up only -- 25%, 25% of the world's economy.

we need to be having the rest of our friends with us, saying to china, these are the rules. you play by them or you're going to pay the price economically. that's the way i will run it and that's what we did upholding steel tariffs. >> let's talk about north korea. >> excuse me, no, i have to respond to that. >> okay. very quickly and then we're going to move onto north korea. >> after spending ten minutes in office and being in air force two. number one. number two, there's a very strong email talking about your family wanting to make $10 million a year for introductions. >> president trump, on china policy, though, what are you going to do, what specifically are you going to do to make china pay. you said you're going to make them pay. >> china is paying. >> new sanctions? >> i just gave $28 billion -- >> taxpayers money. >> it's what? >> taxpayers money.

didn't come from china. >> it's called china. china paid 28 billion -- >> not true. >> you know what they did to pay it? they devalued their currency and they paid up. you know who got the money? our great farmers, because they were targeted. you never charged them anything. also, i charged them 25% on dumped steel because they were killing our steel industry. we were not going to have a steel industry. >> okay. >> and now we have a steel industry. >> vice president biden, your response. >> my response is, look. this isn't about -- there's a reason why he's bringing up all this malarkey. there's a reason for it. he doesn't want to talk about the substantive issues. it's not about his family and my family. it's about your family. and your family is hurting badly. if you are making less -- if you are a middle class family, you are getting hurt badly right now. you are deciding, well, we can't get new tires, they're bald, because we have to wait another month or so, are we going to be able to pay the mortgage, who is going to tell her she can't go back to community college?

those are the decisions you're making in the middle class families i grew up in. they're in trouble. we should be talking about your families, but that's the last thing he wants to talk about. >> that is a typical statement -- >> i want to turn to -- >> ten seconds, mr. president. >> that's a typical political statement. let's get off the china thing and then he looks, the family, around the table. just a typical politician when i see it. i'm not a typical politician. that's why i got elected. >> let's talk about -- >> let's get off the subject, let's talk about sitting around the table. come on, joe. >> we're going to talk about north korea now. president trump, you met with kim jong-un three times. you talked about your beautiful letters with him, you touted the fact that there hasn't been a war or a long-range missile test and yet north korea recently rolled out its biggest ever intercontinental missile and continues to develop its nuclear arsenal. do you see that as a betrayal? just 30 seconds here. >> so, when i met with barack obama, we sat in the white ho e house, right at the beginning,

had a great conversation, supposed to be 15 minutes, it was well over an hour. we said the biggest problem we have is north korea. he indicated, we will be in a war with north korea. guess what? it would be a nuclear war. and he does have plenty of nuclear capability. in the meantime, i have a very good relationship with him. different kind of a guy, but he probably thinks the same thing about me. we have a different kind of a relationship. we have a very good relationship. and there's no war. and, you know, about two months ago, he broke into a certain area, they said, oh, there's going to be trouble, i said, no, they're not, he's not going to do that. i was right. look, instead of being a war, where millions of people, seoul, you know, a 25 miles away, millions and millions, 32 million people in seoul, millions of people would be dead right now. >> that's 30 seconds, thank you. vice president biden, to you. north korea conducted four nuclear tests under the obama administration. why do you think you'd be aible

to rein in this threat? >> i made it clear as a spokesperson when i went to china, they said, why are you moving your missile defense up to close? why are you moving more forces here? why are you continuing to do military maneuvers with south korea? i said because north korea is a problem. and we're going to continue to do it so we can control them. we're going to make sure we can control them and make sure they cannot hurt us. and so, if you want to do something about it, step up and help. if not, it's going to continue. what has he done? he's legitimized north korea. he talked about his good buddy, who is a thug. a thug. and he talks about how we're better off. and they have much more capable missiles. able to reach u.s. territory much more easily than ever did before. >> let me follow up, vice president biden. you said you would about meet with kim jong-un without preconditions. are there any conditions under which you would meet with him? >> on the condition he would agree that he would be drawing down his nuclear capacity to

get -- the carekorean peninsula should be a nuclear-free zone. >> kristen, they tried to meet with him. they tried to meet with him. he wouldn't do it. he didn't like obama. he didn't like him. he wouldn't do it. >> okay, i have to give him a chance to respond to that before we move on. >> it's okay. you know what? north korea, we're not in a war, we have a good relationship. you know, people document understand, having a good relationship -- >> president trump, question have to move on, because we have a lot of questions to get to. >> we had a good relationship with hitler before he, in fact, invaded europe. the rest of europe. come on. the reason he would not meet with president obama is because president obama said we're going to talk about denuclearization. we're not going to legitimize you, we're going to continue to push stronger and stronger sanctions on you. that's why he wouldn't meet with us. >> and it didn't happen. >> let's move on and talk about american families. we need to move on. >> they left me a mess.

north korea was a mess. >> we need to move on so that we can get to all of our other questions tonight, president trump. >> there was a very dangerous period in my first three months before we sort of worked things out. >> okay. >> they left us a mess and obama would be, i think, the first to say, it was the single-biggest problem. >> okay, let's move onto american families and the economy. one of the issues that's most important to them is health care, as you both know. today, there was a key vote on a new supreme court justice, amy coney barrett and health care is at the center of her confirmation fight. over 20 million americans get their health insurance through the affordable care act. it is headed to the supreme court and your administration, mr. president, is advocating for the court to overturn it. if the supreme court does overturn that law, those 20 million americans could lose their health insurance almost overnight, so, what would you do if those people have their health insurance taken away. you have two minutes, uninterrupted. >> first of all, i've done something that nobody thought

was possible. through the legislature, i terminated the individual mandate. that is the worst part of obama care, as we call it. the individual mandate, where you have to pay a fortune for the privilege of not having to pay for bad health insurance. i terminated it. it's gone. now, it's in court. because obamacare is no good. but then i made a decision. run it as well as you can, to my people, great people, run it as well as you can, i could have gone the other route and made everybody very unhappy. they ran it. premiums are down, everything's down. here's the problem. no matter how well you run it, it's no good. what we'd like to do is terminate it, we have the individual mandate done. i don't know that it's going to work. if we don't win, we -- i'll have to run it and we'll have obama care, but it will be better run, but it no longer is obamacare, because without the individual mandate, it's much different. pre-existing conditions will always stay. what i would like to do is a much better health care, much

better. we'll always protect people with pre-existing. so, i would like to terminate obamacare, come up with a brand new beautiful health care. the democrats will do it because there will be tremendous pressure on them and we might even have the house by that time and i think we're going to win the house, okay, you'll see, but i think we're going to win the house. but come up with a better health care, always protecting people with pre-existing conditions. and one thing very important, we have 180 million people out there that have great private health care. far more than we're talking about with obamacare. joe biden is going to terminate all of those policies. these are people that love their health care. people that have been successful, middle income people, been successful. they have 180 million plans, 180 million people, families, under what he wants to do, which will basically be socialized medicine, he won't even have a choice, they want to terminate 180 million plans. we have done an incredible job on health care and we're going to do even better.

>> okay, vice president biden, yes, this is for you, your health care plan calls for building on obama care. so, what is your plan, if the law is ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court? you have two minutes, uninterrupted. >> what i'm going to do is pass obamacare with a public option, become bidencare. the public option is the option that says if you, in fact, do not have the where with all to be -- if you qualify for medicaid and you do not have the where with all, then you are automatically enrolled, providing competition for insurance companies. that's what's going to happen. secondly, we're going to make sure we reduce the premiums and reduce drug prices by making sure that there's competition that doesn't exist now by allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices with the insurance companies. thirdly, the idea that i want to eliminate private insurance, the reason why i had such a fight for -- with 20 conditions for the nomination was, i support

private insurance. that's why i didn't -- not one single person with private insurance would lose their insurance under my plan nor did they under obamacare. they did not lose their children unless they chose they wanted to go to something else. lastly, we're going to make sure we're in a situation that we actually protect pre-existing -- there's no way he can protect pre-existing conditions. none, zero. you can't do it in the ether. he's been talking about this for a long time. there is no -- he's never com up with a plan. i guess we're going to get the pre-existing condition plan the same time we get the inf infrastructure plan that we've waited since '17, '18, '19, '20. i still have a few more minutes. i know you are getting anxious. the fact is, he's already cost the american people because of his terrible handling of the covid virus and the economic spillover. 10 million people have lost their private insurance. and he wants to take away 22 million more people who have it under obamacare and over 110

million people with pre-existing conditions and all the people from covid are going to have pre-existing conditions. what are they going to do? >> i have a followup for you, vice president biden, it relates to something that president trump said. he's accusing you of wanting socialized medicine. what do you say to people who have concerns that your health care plan takes the country one step closer to a health care system run entirely by the government? >> i say it's ridiculous. it's like saying that, you know, we're -- the idea that -- the fact that there's a public option, that people can choose? that makes it a socialist plan? look. the difference between the president and i, health care is not a privilege, it's a right. everyone should have the right to have affordable health care. i'm very proud of my plan. it's gotten endorsed by all the major labor unions, as well as a whole range of other people who, in fact, are concerned in the medical field. this is something that's going to save people's lives and this is going to give people an opportunity, an opportunity to have health care for their

children. how many of you at home are worried, rolling around in bed tonight wondering what in god's name you're going to do if you get sick, because you lost your health insurance, your company's gone under? we have to provide health insurance for people at an affordable rate. that's what i do. >> excuse me. he was there for 47 years. he didn't do it. he was now there as haven't for eight years and it's not like it was 25 years ago. it was three and three quarters, it was just a little while ago, right? less than four years ago. he didn't do anything. he didn't do it. he wants socialized medicine. and it's not that he wants it. his vice president, i mean, she is more liberal than bernie sanders and wants it even more. brs brt bernie sanders wants it. you're going to have medicine. just like with fracking. we're going to stop fracking. then he goes to pennsylvania after he gets the nomination and he goes to pennsylvania and he says, oh, we're going to have

fracki fracking. and you never asked that question. and by the way, so far, i respect very much the way you are handling it, i have to say. but somebody should ask the question. >> you can ask the question. >> we do have a number of topics we're going to get to. >> that's a big question. >> we're going to get to it. >> the same thing with socialized medicine. >> vice president, your response, please? >> my response is, people deserve to have affordable health care. period. period, period, period. and the bidencare proposal will, in fact, provide for that affordable health care, lower premiums. what we're going to do is going to cost some money. going to cost $750 billion over ten years to do it, going to have lower premiums, you can buy into the cheaper plans, lower your premiums, deal with unexpected billing and have your drug prices drop significantly. he keeps talking about it. he hasn't done a thing for anybody on health care. not a thing. >> when he says -- >> i want to talk about what's happening on capitol hill. >> he's talking about socialized

medicine and health care. when he talks about a public option, he's talking about destroying your medicare. >> wrong. >> and destroying your social security. and this whole country will come down. you know, bernie sanders tried it in his state. he tried it in his state. his governor was a very liberal governor. they wanted to make it work. it was impossible to work. >> vice president biden? >> he's a very confused guy. he thinks he's running against somebody else. he's running against joe biden. i beat all those other people because i disagreed with them. joe biden he's running zbeagain. and the idea that we're in a situation that we're going to destroy medicare? this is the guy that the act chair of medicare -- at social security said, if he continues to withhold -- his plan to withhold the tax on social security, social security will be bankrupt in -- by 2023. with no way to make up for it. this is a guy who has tried to cut medicare. so, i don't -- i mean, the idea that donald trump is lecturing

me on social security and medicare? come on. >> he tried to hurt social security years ago. years ago, go back and look at the records. he tried to hurt social security years ago. >> all right, let's move on, i'm going to move on, mr. president, i have to move onto the next question. >> they say the stock market will boom. if i'm elected. if he's elected. the stock market will crash. >> all right, let's move on. >> there are analysts saying this. >> vice president, very quickly. >> look, the idea that the stock market is booming is his only measure of what's happening. where i come from in scranton, people don't live off of the stock market. just in the last three years, during this crisis, the billionaires in this country made, according to wall street, 700 billion more dollars. 700 billion more dollars. because that's his only measure. what happens to the ordinary people out there? what happens to them? >> let's talk about -- >> 401(k)s -- kristen --

>> we're going to move on. all right. >> and he doesn't come from scranton. that's, like -- he lived there for a short period of time before he -- >> we're going to move on. >> and he left. and the people of pennsylvania will show you that. they understand. >> as of tonight, more than 12 million people are out of work and as of tonight, 8 million more americans have fallen into poverty and more families are going hungry every day. those hit hardest are women and people of color. they see washington fighting over a relief bill. mr. president, why haven't you been able to get them the help they need? 30 seconds here? >> because nancy pelosi doesn't want to approve it. i do. >> you're the president. >> i do. but i still have to get -- that's one of the reasons i think we're going to take over the house, because of her. nancy pelosi doesn't want to approve anything because she'd love to have some victories on a date called november 3rd. nancy pelosi does not want to approve it. we are ready, willing and able to do something. don't forget, we've already approved three plans and it's gone through, including the

democrats, in all fairness. this one, she doesn't want. it's near the election. because she thinks it helps her politically. >> just so you know, the republican leader in the united states snap said he can't pass it. he will not be able to pass it. he does not have republican votes. why isn't he talking to his republican friends? >> let me follow you up, vice president biden -- you are the leader of the democratic party. why have you not pushed the democrats to get a deal for the american people? >> well, i have, and they have pushed it. they passed this act all the way back in the beginning of the summer. this is like -- it's not new. it's been out there. this h.e.r.o.e.s. act was sitting there. when i was in charge of the recovery act, $800 billion, i was able to get $145 billion for local communities that have to balance their budgets, states that have to balance their budgets, that have to firefighters, teachers, first responders, law enforcement

officers so they can keep their steps and counties running. he will not support that. they have not done a thing for them. and mitch mcconnell said, let them go bankrupt. let them go bankrupt. come on. what's the matter with these guys? >> the bill that was passed in the house was a bailout of badly run, high crime, democrat, all run by democrat, cities and states. it was a way of getting a lot of money, billions and billions of dollars, to these -- it was also a way of getting a lot of money from our people's pockets to people that come into our country illegally. we were going to take care of everything for them. what that does, and i would love to do that, i would love to help them, but everybody all over the world will start pouring into our country. we can't do it. this was a way of taking care of them. this was a way of spending on things that had nothing to do with covid, as per your question, but it was really a big bailout for badly run democrat cities and states. >> if i get elected, i'm running as a proud democrat, but i'm going to be an american

president. i don't see red states and blue states. what i see is america. united states. and folks, every single state out there finds themselves in trouble. they're going to start laying off, whether they're red or blue, cops, firefighters, first responders, because -- teachers, because they have to balance their budget. and the founders were smart, they allowed the federal government to deficit spend to compensate for the united state of america. >> i want to talk about the minimum wage, gentleman. mr. vice president, we are talking a lot about struggling small businesses -- >> yes. >> and business owners these days. do you think this is the right time to ask them to raise the minimum wage? you, of course, support a $15 minimum wage. >> i do. because i think one of the things we're going to have to do is, we're going to have to bail them out, too. we should be bailing them out now. those small businesses. you got 1 in 6 of them going under. they're not going to be able to make it back. they passed a package that allows us to be able to have ppp, money that is supposed to

help them to do everything to organize how they can deal with their businesses being open safely, schools, how they can make classrooms smaller, how they can hire more teachers, how they can put ventilation systems in. they need the help. the businesses, as well as the schools, need the help. but these guys will not help them. it's not giving them any of the money. >> we are going to move on to immigration, but i want to get your reaction. >> help small businesses by raising the minimum wage? that's not help. it think it should be a state option. alabama is different than new york. new york is different from vermont. every state is different. it should be a state option. >> you said very recently -- >> it's very important. we have to help our small businesses. >> you said -- >> how are you helping your small businesses when you are forcing wages. what's going to happen and what's been proven to happen, when you do that, the small businesses fire many of their employees. >> not true, by the way. >> you said recently you would consider raising the federal

minimum wage to $15. >> i would consider it to an extend. >> in a second administration? >> in a second administration. but not to a level that's going to put all these businesses out of business. it should be a state option. look. different places are all different. some places, $15 is not so bad. in other places, other states, $15 would be ruining. >> quick response, vice president biden? >> two jobs, one job, below poverty. people are making $6, $7 an hour. first responders we all clap for as they come down the street because they've allowed us to make it, what's happening? they deserve a minimum wage of $15. anything below that puts you below the poverty level. and there is no evidence that when you raise the minimum wage, businesses go out of business. that is simply not true. >> we're going to talk about immigration. we're going to talk about immigration now, gentlemen. and we're going to talk about families within this context. mr. president, your administration separated children from their parents at

the border, at least 4,000 kids. you've since reversed that policy, but the united states can't locate the parents of more than 500 children. so, how will these families ever be reunited? >> the children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they're brought here and they used to use them to get into our country. we now have as strong a border as we've ever had. we're over 400 millions of brand new wall. you see the numbers and we let people in, but they have to come in legally. >> but how will you reunite these kids? >> they had a picture in a certain newspaper and it with us a picture of these horrible cages and they said, look at these cages, president trump built them. and then it was determined they were built in 2014, that was him. >> do you have a plan to reunite the kids? >> yes, we're working on it. we're trying very hard. but a lot of these kids come out

without the parents. they come over through cartels and through gangs. >> vice president biden, let me bring you into this conversation. quick response and another question to you. >> 500 plus kids came with parents. they separated them at the border to make it a disincentive to come to begin with. real tough, we're really strong. and guess what? they cannot -- it's not coyotes didn't bring them over. their parents were with them. they got separated from their parents. and it makes us a laughing stock and violating every notion of who we are as a nation. >> let me ask you a followup question. >> kristen, they did it, we changed the policy. >> your response to that? >> we did not separate -- >> who built the cages, joe? >> let's talk about what we're talking about. let's talk about what we're talking about. what happened? parents -- their kids were ripped from their arms and separated. and now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone.

nowhere to go. nowhere to go. it's criminal. it's criminal. >> let me ask you about immigration. ten seconds. >> they are so well taken care of. they're in facilities that were so clean. >> some of them haven't been reunited with their families. >> one question. who built the cages? i'd love you to ask that. who built the cages? >> let me ask about your immigration policy, mr. vice president. the obama administration did fail to produce immigration reform. it presided over record deportations, as well as family detentions at the border, before changing course. so, why should voters trust you with an immigration overhaul now? >> because we made a mistake. took too long to get it right. i'll be president of the united states, not vice president of the united states. and the fact is, i've made it very clear, within 10 0 days, i'm going to send to the united states congress a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people. and all of those so-called

dreamers, those daca kids, they are going to be immediately certified again to stay in this country and put on a path to citizenship. the idea that they are being sent home by this guy and they want to do that, is going to a country they've never seen before. i can imagine, you're 5 years old, patient parents are taking across the rio grande river and it's illegal. and you say, oh, no, mom, leave me here. i'm not going to go with you. they've been here, many of them are model citizens. 20,000 of them are first responders out there taking care of people during this crisis. we owe them. we owe them. >> president trump? >> he had eight years to do what he said he was going to do. and i've changed -- without having a specific, we got rid of catch and release, we got rid of a lot of horrible things they lived with. but he had eight years he was vice president. he did nothing except build

cages to keep children in. >> vice president biden? >> wrong. the catch and release, you know what he's talking about there? if, in fact, you had a family, came across and they were arrested, they, in fact, were given a date to show up for their hearing. they were released and guess what? they showed up for a hearing. this is the first president in the history of the united states of america that anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. that's never happened before in america. that's never happened before in america. you come to the united states and you make your case that, i seek asylum based on the following premise, why i deserve it under american law. they're sitting in scal lor on the other side of the river. >> president trump, your response? 30 seconds and then we'll move on. >> it just shows that he has no understanding of immigration or the laws. catch and release is a disaster. a murderer would come in, a rapist would come in, a very bad person would come in, we would

take their name. we have to release them into our country and then you say they come back. less than 1% of the people come back. we have to send -- >> not true. >> we have to send i.c.e. out and border patrol to find them. we would say, come back in two, three years, we're going to give you a court case, you need perry mason. when you say they come back, they don't come back, joe. they never come back. >> they do. >> only the really -- i hate to see this, but those with the lowest iq, they might come back. >> okay, president trump, let's give vice president biden a chance to respond and then we're going to move onto the next section. >> you don't know the law, joe. >> i know the law. what he's telling you is simply not true. check it out. >> all right, let's move on. >> we don't have to worry about it, because i terminated it. >> and you have 525 kids not knowing where in god's name they're going to be and lost their parents. >> go ahead. >> all right. let's talk about our next section which is race in america. and i want to talk about the way black and brown americans

experience race in this country. part of that experience is something called the talk. it happens regardless of class and income. parents who feel they have no choice but to prepare their children for the chance that they could be targeted, including by the police, for no reason other than the color of their skin. mr. vice president, in the next two minutes, i want you to speak directly to these families. do you understand why these parents fear for their children? >> i do. i do. you know, my daughter is a social worker and she's written a lot about this, she has her gramg watt degree from the university of pennsylvania in social work and, you know, one of the reasons why i ended up working on the east side of wilmington, delaware, which is 90% african-american, was to learn more about what was going on. i never had to tell my daughter, if she's pulled over, make sure she puts both hands on top of

the wheel and don't reach for the glove box, because someone may shoot you. but a black parent, no matter how wealthy or how poor they are, has to teach their child, when you're walking down the street, don't have a hoodie on when you go across the street. making sure that you, in fact, if you get pulled over, yes, sir, no, sir, hands on top of the wheel. because you are, in fact, the victim whether you are a person making $300,000 or someone who e is on food stamps. the fact of the matter is, there is institutional racism in america. and we have always said, we've never lived up to it, we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women are created equal. guess what? we have never lived up to it. but we have been constantly moving the needle further and further to inclusion. not exclusion. this is the first president to come along and say that's the end of that. we're not going to do that anymore. we have to provide for economic opportunity, better education,

better health care, better access to schooling. better access to opportunity to borrow money to start businesses. all the things we can do and i've laid out a clear plan as to how to do those things. just to give people a shot. it's about accumulating the ability to have wealth, as well as it is to be free from violence. >> president trump, same question to you and let me remind you of the question. i would like you to speak directly thoudirect ly to these families. do you understand why these parents fear for these children? >> yes, i do. and again, he's been in government 47 years, he never did a thing. except in 1994 when he did such harm to the black community and they were called and he called them super predators and he said that, he said it, super predators. and they can never live that down. 1994, your crime bill, the super predators. nobody has done more for the black community than donald trump. and if you look, with the

exception of abraham lincoln, possible exception, but the exception of abraham lincoln, nobody has done what i've done. criminal justice reform, obama and joe didn't do it. i don't even think they tried, because they had no chance at doing it. they might have wanted to do it, but if you had to see the arms i had to twist to get that done, it was not a pretty picture. and everybody knows it, including some very liberal people that cried in my office, they cried in the oval office, two weeks later, they're out saying, gee, we have to defeat him. criminal justice reform. prison reform. opportunity zones with tim scott, a great senator from south carolina. he came in with this incredible idea for opportunity zones. it's one of the most successful programs. people don't talk about it. tremendous investment is being made. biggest beneficiary, the black and hispanic communitcommunitie. historically black colleges and universities. after three years of coming to

the office, i love some of those guys, they were great. they came into the office and they said, i said, what are you doing, after three years, why do you keep coming back? because we have no funding. i said, you don't have to come back every year. we have to come back. because president obama would never give them long-term funding and i did. ten-year, long-term funding and i gave them more money than they asked for, because i said, i think you need more. and i said, the only bad part about this is, i may never see you again, because i got very friendly with them and they like me and i like them, but i saved -- historically black colleges and universities. >> we're going to talk on your record. but your response to that, vice president biden? >> my response is that i never, ever said what he accused me of saying. the fact of the matter is, in 2000, though, after the crime bill had been in the law for awhile, this is a guy who said, the problem with the crime bill, there's not enough people in jail. there's not enough people in jail. go on my website, get the quote, the date, when he said it.

not enough people. he talked about gangs, young gangs and the people in our cities. this is a guy who in the central park five, five innocent black kids, he continued to push to make sure they got the death penalty. none of them were guilty of what the crime -- of the crimes that were suggested. and look. granted, he did, in fact, let 20 people, he commuted 20 people's sentences. we commuted over 1,000 people's sentences. over 1,000. the very law he's talking about is a law that, in fact, initiated by barack obama. and secondly, we're in a situation here where we -- the federal prison system was reduced by 38,000 people under our administration. and one of those things we should be doing, there should be no minimum mandatories in the law. that's why i'm offering $20 billion to states to change their state laws to eliminate minimum mandatories and set up drug courts.

no one should be going to jail because they have a drug problem. they should be going to rehabilitation, not to jail. we should fundamentally change the system and that's what i'm going to do. >> why didn't he do it four years ago? why didn't you do that four years ago, even less than that? >> i am -- >> you keep talking about all these things you're going to do and you're going to do this, but you were there, just a short time ago and you guys did nothing. you know, joe, i ran because of you. i ran because of barack obama. because you did a poor job. if i thought you did a good job, i would have never run. i would have never run. i ran because of you. i'm looking at you now, you're a politician, i ran because of you. >> all right, vice president biden, your response to that and then i do have some questions for both of you. >> well, i tell you what, i hope he does look at me, because what's happening here is, you know who i am, you know who he is. you know his character, you know my character. you know our reputations for honor and telling the truth. i am anxious to have this race.

i am anxious to see this take place. i am -- the character of the country is on the ballot. our character is on the ballot. look at us closely. >> excuse me. >> please respond. >> if this is true about russia, ukraine, china, iraq, if this is true, then he's a corrupt politician. so, don't give me the stuff about how you're this innocent baby. joe, they're calling you a corrupt politician. >> nobody's calling -- >> i want to stay on the issue of race. we're talking about -- >> the laptop from hell. >> nobody -- >> we're talking about race right now and i want to stay on the issue of race. >> i have to respond to that. >> please. very quickly. >> look. there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what -- what he's accusing me of is a russian plant. they have said that this has all the -- five former heads of the cia, both parties, say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage. nobody believes it except him and his good friend rudy

giuliani. >> you mean the laptop is now another russia, russia, russia hoax? you got to be -- >> that's exactly what was told. >> this laptop is russia, russia, russia? >> i want to stay on the issue of race. >> here we go again with russia. >> mr. president, we're going to continue on the issue of race. you described the black lives matter movement as a symbol of hate. you've shared a video of a man chanting "white power" to millions of your supporters. you've said that black professional athletes exercising their first amendment rights should be fired. what do you say to americans who say that kind of lang wauage is contributing to it? >> the first time i heard about black lives matter, they were talking about pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon. they were marching down the street. and that was my first glimpse of black lives matter. i thought it was a terrible thing. as far as my relationships with

all people, i think i have great relationships with all people. i am the least racist person in this room. >> what do you say to americans who are concerned by that rhetoric? >> i don't know what to say. i got criminal justice reform done and prison reform and opportunity zones, i took care of black colleges and universities. i don't know what to say. they can say anything. i mean, they can say anything. it's a very -- it makes me sad because i am -- i am the least racist person, i can't even see the audience because it's so dark, but i don't care who is in the audience, i'm the least racist person in this room. >> okay, vice president biden, let me ask you very quickly and then i have a followup question for you. >> abraham lincoln was one of the most racist presidents. started off his campaign coming down the escalator, saying he's going to get rid of those

mexican rapists. he banned muslims because they're muslims. he's moved around and made everything worse across the board. he says to the -- about the poor boys, last time we were on stage here, told them stand down and stand ready. this guy has a dog whistle about as big as a fog horn. >> you made a reference to abraham lincoln. >> you said you were abraham lincoln. >> no. no. >> you said -- >> i said not since abraham lincoln has anybody done what i've done for the black community. i didn't say i'm abraham lincoln. i said not since abraham lincoln has anybody done what i've done for the black community. now you have done nothing other than the crime bill, which put -- >> oh, god. >> tens of thousands of black men, mostly, in jail. >> all right, let me -- >> you look at what's happening with the voting right now?

they remember you treated them very badly. >> vice president biden, let me ask you to respond within this context. bills you responded contributed toincarceration of black men with small amounts of drugs in their position. their families, some to this day, suffering the consequences. so, speak to those families. why should they vote for you? >> one of the things, in the '80s, we passed 100%, all 100 senators voted for it, a bill on drugs and how to deal with drugs. it was a mistake. i've been trying to change it since then, particularly the portion on cocaine. that's why i've been arguing that, in fact, we should not send anyone to jail for that pure drug offense. they should be going into treatment across the board. that's what we should be spending money. that's why i set up drop courts, which were never funded by our

republican friends. they should not be going to jail for a drug or an alcohol problem, they should be going into treatment. treatment. that's what we've been trying to do. that's what i'm going to get done. because i think the american people have now seen that, in fact, it was a mistake to pass those laws related to drugs. but they were not in the crime bill. >> but why didn't he get it done? see, it's all talk, no action with these politicians. why didn't he get it done. that's what i'm going to do when i become president. you were vice president with obama as your president, your leader, for eight years. why didn't you get it done? you had eight years to get it done. now you're saying you're going to get it done, because you're all talk and no action, joe. >> we got a lot of it done. we released 38,000 prisoners. >> you got nothing done. >> 38,000 prisoners were released from federal prison. there were over 1,000 people who were given clemency. we, in fact -- we're the ones that put in the legislation saying we could look at pattern and practice of police

departments and what they were doing, how they were conducting themselves. i could go on. but we began the process. we began the process. we lost an election. that's why i'm running, to win back that election and change his terrible policies. >> your response? >> i just have one question. why didn't you do it in the eight years, a short time ago, why didn't you do it? you just said, i'm going to do that, i'm going to do this, you put tens of thousands of mostly black young men in prison, now you're saying you're going to get, you're going to undo that. why didn't you get it done? you had eight years with obama. you know why, joe? you're all talk and no action. >> vice president, we're going to -- >> we had a republican congress. that's the answer. >> you have to talk them into it, joe. sometimes you have to talk them into it. >> we're going to move -- >> like i did with criminal justice reform. i had to talk democrats into it. >> gentlemen. >> you did what we've run to do.

>> we have to get to climate change. president trump, you say environmental regulations have hurt jobs in the energy sector. vice president biden, you have said you see addressing climate change as an opportunity to create new jobs. for each of you, how would you both combat climate change and support job growth at the same time, starting with you president trump, you have two minutes uninterrupted. >> so, we have the trillion trees program, we have so many different programs. i do love the environment, but what i want is the cleanest, crystal clear water, the cleanest air. we have the best, lowest number in carbon emissions, which is a big standard that i notice obama goes with all the time. not joe, i haven't heard joe use the term, i'm not sure he knows what it means, but i have heard obama use it. and we have the best carbon emission numbers that we've had in 35 years. under this administration, we have working so well with industry, but here's what we

can't do. look at china. how filthy it is. look at russia. look at india. it's filthy. the air is filthy. the paris accord, i took us out, because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly, when they put us in there, they did us a great disservice. they were going to take away our business businesses. i will not sacrifice tens of millions of jobs, thousands and thousands of companies, because of the paris accord. it was so unfair. china doesn't kick in until 2030. russia goes back to a low standard. and we kicked in right away. it would have been -- it would have destroyed our businesses. so, you ready? we have done an incredible job environmentally. we have the cleanest air, the cleanest water and the best carbon emission standards that we've seen in many, many years. >> vice president biden? >> and we haven't destroyed our industries. >> vice president biden, two mib

ults to you, uninterrupted. >> climate change, climate warming, global warming, is an existential threat to humanity. we have a moral obligation to deal with it. and we're told by all the leading scientists in the world, we don't have much time. we're going to pass the point of no return within the next eight to ten years. four more years of this man eliminating all the regulations that were put in by us to clean up the climate, to clean up, to limit the emissions, will put us in a position where we're going to be in real trouble. here's where we have a great opportunity. i was able to get both -- all the environmental organizations, as well as labor, the people worried about jobs, to support my climate plan. because what it does, it will create millions of new, good-paying jobs. we're going to invest in, for example, 500,000 -- excuse me, 50,000 charging stations on our

highways so that we can own the electric car market of the future. in the meantime, china is doing that. we're going to be in a position where we're going to see to it that we're going to take 4 million buildings and 2 million homes and retrofit them so they don't leak as much energy, saving oil in the process and creating significant number of jobs. and by the way, the whole idea of what this is all going to do, it's going to create millions of jobs. and it's going to clean the environment. our health and our jobs are at stake. that's what's happening. and right now, by the way, wall street firms indicated that my plan, my plan will, in fact, create 18.6 million jobs, 7 million more than his. this is from wall street. and i'll create $1 trillion more in economic growth than his proposal does. not on climate, just on the economy. >> president trump, your response? >> they came out and said very

strongly, $6,500 will be taken away from families under his plan. that his plan is an economic disaster. if you look at what he wants to do, you know, the -- if you look at his plan -- >> nothing to do with climate. >> you know who developed his plan? aoc plus three. they know nothing about the climate. she's got a good line of stuff. but she knows nothing about the climate and they're all hopping through hoops for aoc plus three. their plan costs $100 trillion. if we had the best year in the history of our country for 10 0 years, we would not even come close to a number like that. when he says buildings, they want to take buildings down because they want to make bigger windows into smaller people. if you had no windows, it would be a lovely thing. this is the craziest plan that anybody's ever seen. this wasn't done by smart people. this wasn't done by anybody -- frankly, i don't even know how it can be good politically. they want to spend $100

trillion. that's their real number. he's trying to say it was six. it's $100 trillion. they want to knock down buildings and build new buildings with little tiny small windows. i mean -- and many other things and many other things. >> let me have the vice president respond and we're running out of time and we have a lot more questions to get to. let's hear from the vice president, i have a number more questions. >> i don't know where he comes up with these numbers. $100 trillion. give me a break. this plan -- this is a plan that's been endorsed every major environmental group and every labor group. labor. because they know the future lies, the future lies in us being able to breathe and they know they are good jobs in getting us there. and by the way, the fastest growing industry in america is the electric -- excuse me, solar energy and wind. he thinks wind causes cancer. windmills. it's the fastest growing jobs.

and they pay good, prevailing $45, 50 bucks an hour. we can grow and we can be cleaner if we go the route i'm proposing. >> excuse me. >> please respond. >> we have energy independent for the first type. we don't need all of these countries that we had to fight war over because we needed their energy. we have energy independent. i know more about wind than you do. it's extremely expensive. kills all the birds, it's very intermitte intermittent, got a lot of problems and they happen to make the windmills in germany and china and the fumes coming up, if you are a believer in carbon emission, the fumes coming up to make these massive windmills is more than anything we're talking about with natural gas, which is very clean. one other thing. >> find me a scientist that says that. >> solar, i love solar. but solar doesn't quite have it yet. it's not powerful yet, to really run our big, beautiful factories that we need to compete with the world. so -- >> false. >> it's all a pipe dream.

but you know what we'll do? we're going to have the greatest economy in the world, but if you want to kill the economy, get rid of your oil industry, if you want -- and what about trafrack. >> i never said i oppose fracking. >> i said it on tape. >> show the tape. put it on the website. >> i'll put it on. >> he's lying. >> would you rule out banni inn fracking? >> i do. because the answer, we need other industries to transition to get to ultimately a complete zero emissions by 2025. what i will do with fracking over time is make sure that we can capture the emissions from it. capture the emissions from gas. we can do that and we can do that by investing money but it's a transition to that. >> i have one more question in this pod and then -- >> excuse me, he was against

fracking. he was against it. >> do it. >> until he got the nomination, went to pennsylvania, then he said -- but you know what, pennsylvania, he'll be against it very soon because his party is totally against it. >> fracking on federal land. i said, none of it on federal land. >> let me ask this final question in this section and then i want to move onto our final section. president trump, people of color are much more likely to live near oil refineries and chemical plants. in texas, there are families who worry the plants near them are making them sick. your administration has rolled back regulations on these kinds of facilities. why should these families give you another four years in office? >> the families that we're talking about are employed heavily and they are making a lot of money, more money than they've ever made. if you look at the kind of numbers that we produce for hispanic or black or asian, it's nine times greater, the percentage gain, than it was under -- in three years, that it was under eight years of the two of them, to put it nicely.

nine times more. now, somebody lives -- i have not heard the numbers or the statistics that you're saying, but they're making a tremendous amount of money economically. we saved it. and i saved it again a number of months ago when oil was crashing because of the pandemic. >> okay. >> we saved it. >> we got -- say what you want about relationship, we got saudi arabia, mexico and russia to cut back, way back, we saved our oil industry and now it's very vibrant again. and everybody has very inexpensive gasoline. >> vice president biden, your response and we're going to have a final question for both of you. >> my response is that those people live on what they call fence lines. he doesn't understand this. they live near chemical plants that, in fact, pollute. i used to live this here that when i grew up in delaware. and all the oil refineries in the delaware river, than there is any place, including houston at the time. my mom would get in the car,

when there was a first frost to drive me to school, turn on the windshield wiper, there would be an oil slick on the window. that's why so many in my state died and got konser. it doesn't matter what you are paying them. how do you keep them safe? what do you do? you impose restrictions on the mrus tants that are coming out of those fence line communities. >> okay. i have one final question. >> would he close down the oil industry? would you close down the oil industry? >> by the way, i would transition from the oil industry, yes. i would transition. >> that's a big statement. >> that is a big statement. because i would stop -- >> why would you do that? >> because the oil industry pollutes significantly. >> i see. >> here's the deal. >> that's a big statement. >> well, if you let me finish the statement. because it has to be replaced by renewable energy. over time. over time. and i'd stop giving to the oil industry, i'd stop giving them federal subsidies. he won't give federal subsidies

to solar and wind. why are we giving it to oil industry? >> we actually do give it to solar and wind. and that's the biggest statement in terms of business. because basically what he's saying is he is going to destroy the oil industry. will you remember that, texas? will you remember that, pennsylvania? oklahoma? >> vice president biden, let me give you ten seconds to respond and i have to get to the final question. vice president biden? >> he takes everything out of context, but the point is, look. we have to move toward a net zero emissions. the first place to do that by the year 2035 is in energy production, by 2050 totally. >> is he going to get china to do it? >> we're finished with this. we have to move onto our final question. >> i'm going to rejoin paris accord and make china abide by what they agreed to. >> that will cost you a trillion dollars. >> this is about leadership, gentlemen, and this question goes to you, president trump. imagine this is your inauguration day. what will you say in your address to americans who did not vote for you?

you'll each have one minute, starting with you, mr. president. >> we have to make our country totally successful as it was prior to the plague coming in from china. now we're rebuilding it and we're doing record numbers, 11.4 million jobs in a short period of time, et cetera. but i'll tell you, go back. before the plague came in, just before, i was getting calls from people that were not normally people that would call me. they wanted to get together. we had the best black unemployment numbers in the history of our country. hispanic. women. asian. people with diplomas, m.i.t. graduates, number one in the class, everybody had the best numbers. and you know what? the other side wanted to get together, they wanted to unify. success is going to bring us together. we are on the road to success. but i'm cutting taxes and he wants to raise everybody's taxes and he wants to put new regulations on everything. he will kill it. if he gets in, you will have a depression the likes of which you've never seen.

your 401(k)s will go to hell and it will be a very, very sad day for this country. >> all right, vice president biden, same question to you. what will you say during your inaugural address to americans who did not vote for you? >> i will say, i'm an american president. i represent all of you, whether you voted for me or against me. and i'm going to make sure that you are represented. i'm going to give you hope. we're going to move. we're going to choose science over fiction. we're going to choose hope over fear. we're going to choose to move forward, because we have enormous opportunities. enormous opportunities to make things better. we can grow this economy. we can deal with systemic racism. at the same time, we can make sure that our economy is being run and moved and motivated by clean energy. creating millions of new jobs. and that's the fact. that's what we're going to do. and i'm going to say, as i've said at the beginning, what is on the ballot here is the character of this country. decency.

honor. respect. treating people with dignity. making sure that everyone has an even chance. and i'm going to make sure you get that. you haven't been getting it the last four years. >> all right, i want to thank you both for a very robust hour and a half, a fantastic debate. really appreciate it. president trump, former vice president joe biden, thank you to belmont university for hosting us tonight. and most importantly, thank you to those watching tonight. election day is november 3rd, don't forget to vote. thank you, everyone and have a great night. >> there you have it. second and final debate of this 2020 election. donald trump, joe biden, two white men in their 70s, two very different candidates. what we heard tonight over the course of the 90 minutes, as we see melania trump come on the stage with her mask on tonight. two very different visions on how to handle the covid crisis, how the covid crisis was handled. for the first 40 minutes, it seemed like a normal debate, as the candidates laid out their

positions on the covid crisis. got heated about 40 minutes in when joe biden went on offense over donald trump and his personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. president trump responding with a series of unverified and misleading and false charges about joe biden and his business dealings and the business dealings of his son. and then some harsh clashes. we didn't have the kind of interruptions we saw in the first debate. the mute did appear to work, at least for a time. but there were harsh clashes on health care, the minimum wage, children separated at the border under the trump administration policy. and the big issue of character and race. joe biden talking about donald trump, abraham lincoln, one of the racist presidents of modern times. the big question, jon karl, in the debate hall tonight, for the president and his team, did they do enough to change the dynamic of this race? >> well, look, george, this was a much better debate, and kudos

to kristen welker, the moderator here. and certainly the trump camp, republicans generally who have heard from over the course of the debate, were relieved that donald trump was much more disciplined. he wasn't doing all the interruptions. he actually had a theme, at times. the theme that joe biden is a politician, when biden would come up with something, why didn't you do it when you were in power, 47 years, why didn't you do it. so, much more disciplined. but george, your question, did it do enough to change the race? i don't think so. and one factor here is that joe biden had, i believe, the best debate that he has had in 2020. joe biden went on the offense. joe biden had donald trump on the defensive repeatedly. even when it got into hunter biden. joe biden turned it around and put donald trump on the defensive about his taxes. i released my taxes, why haven't you released your taxes? how much did you pay in taxes? what about your bank account in china? it was a much nifeistier and

focused joe biden, as well. >> the biden camp prepped for several days. perhaps it paid off. >> it certainly seems that way. you know, george, going into this debate, we were talking about how, in many ways, joe biden just needed to stay the course. this was anything but trying to run out the clock here tonight. joe biden was surprisingly aggressive, it was, i think i agree with jon karl, his strongest debate performance, much stronger than the faceoff that we saw him have during the primary. he did go on offense. he went after trump really hard on his taxes, on his lack of a health care plan, on foreign influence, on immigration and wheel separation policies. and his team tonight feels that he did a very strong job here. they say, yes, the president may have had a softer tone, that there weren't the constant interruptions that we saw at the last debate, but biden says, that simply doesn't cut it. they say trump needed a win here, he needed a big win here and he didn't do that. that's according to the biden team. they also feel, you know, that trump came in trying to drive specific attacks, he repeated

lies and that biden proved that he can flip the script and the president and put him on defense. >> david muir, he was not sitting on a lead. >> no, wasn't. right out of the gate. right out of the gate we saw that very difference between the two of them on how they would handle the pandemic. we saw the vice president come out with the black mask on. the president did not have a mask. they differed on where we've been as a country with the pandemic, where we are and where we're going. the president talked about him having covid, he said, i'm immune, not sure how long that lasts, but i'm immune. said a vaccine was ready, we know regulators have said emergency authorization won't come at least until thanksgiving. from vice president biden, we heard something very different. 220,000 americans are dead. any president who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain president of the united states. he used the word responsible, which is a strong word for vice president biden to use. he said, we're about to go through a very dark winter, in stark contrast to what we heard from donald trump, not only on

the campaign trail, he said we are rounding the corner, despite the surge, three of us have been reporting on it in this country. and it's really -- no part of this country is immune to the spike we're seeing right now. and where they really did battle is how do you move forward? vice president joe biden made the argument that we've got to get money to small business, we've got to open carefully, that might mean social distancing in these businesses. the president continued to try to hammer him, saying, you have to open things stifling the eco. >> definitely on the pandemic and linsey, one of the other things we saw, we saw the president trying to make headway with these attacks against joe biden, his personal corruption, he said, it seemed like joe biden came back and sort of embraced that debate, saying, character, yeah, character is on the ballot. >> looked right at the american public at that moment and said, you know who we are, right? and now you make that decision. i thought that that was a really strong and compelling moment that joe biden had. i think he really had one job to

do tonight, and that was do no harm and i think he accomplished that. chris christie said that donald trump's job was to say, what is he going to do in the next four years. instead, he really gave what you're going to get in joe biden is to get elected. you're going to have a depression the likes of which nobody has ever seen. the stock market is going to crash. fracking will go away. small businesses will have to fire employees. >> even when he was asked what he would be saying in his inauguration, after he defeated joe biden. we have to take a quick break right now. i'm looking for my client. i'm his accountant. i'm so sorry. [ sighs ] hey! hey man! you're here. you don't trust me here is vegas, do you? well... i thought we had a breakthrough with the volkswagen. we did. yes. we broke through. that's the volkswagen! that's the cross sport. wow. seatbelts. ♪

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and we are back after the final debate. let's go to our roundtable. chris christie, let me begin with you. same question i asked jon karl, did president trump do what he needed to do? >> i think he did, george. in terms of his demeanor tonight, i think he ran a debate that was very strong. his demeanor was good. i think he was talking to the american people. and i think the other thing that i knew he needed to do tonight, which i think he did, was to show the contrast between the policies of his administration and what would be a biden administration. so, for people out there who are listening who want to know what the choice is, i think they got a much better opportunity to hear that choice tonight. i think it was a good night for the president. i think he did what he needed to do tonight and what's possible to do in a 90-minute debate and i think the president did quite well tonight.

>> rahm emanuel? >> i think joe biden was most passionate about the concerns and the squeeze on middle class families who are sitting at the kitchen table trying to figure out how to pay bills. and that passion of understanding, that intensity of pressure on families in a very intimate and personal way, really came through and you can also understand, he said, let's have a character debate and that's what's on the ballot. i think he understood, i'm going to be a president for all america. trump for 40 minutes, he played to the script and the mask came off and the old trump was there. and i would also say that while the microphone was off, the camera was on and when joe biden was speaking, trump looked like a petulant child. and the whole time that split screen did not work for donald trump. and so, the mic may have been down, but the camera was on and was hot and his facial gestures did not work for him. at the end of the day, i also think this. the american people have made a decision about this election.

it's about donald trump. the dynamics of that for the election, the architecture is set, clear and they're going to go making a decision about trump and whether biden is an acce acceptable alternative. >> let's take that question to sara fagen. did president trump make it a choice election tonight? >> he did a much better job in this debate than the first one of making it a choice. and i agree with chris. i think the president did quite well. but what the president needed tonight to ultimately change the trajectory of this race, was for biden to make a big mistake and i did not see that. i thought the vice president answered himself quite well. he was forward leaning and at times addressed the american people directly, which i thought were strong moments. so, i don't think this race changes much. perhaps we'll see a slight tightening of the polls. and i think that will help trump, i think the narrative shifts, it's helpful as the race closes for him, but he didn't get what he needed out of biden tonight. >> yvette simpson? >> you know, i think biden had

his best night. he continues to get better and better in these debates. and the fact that he actually had time to clarify, to be empathetic, to even acknowledge some of his mistakes, i think is going to speak to a lot of people that might be on the fence about him. the real challenge is, the bar is so low for trump that the fact that he didn't have a fit and roll around on the floor means he had a good debate is ridiculous. i just want to call one thing out that i thought was really, really problematic. he said, i am the least racist person in this room, with an african-american female moderator. how divorced reality do you have to be to say something like that in the midst of a debate. so, biden won overwhelmingly. i think trump was better than last time, but he just sounds ridiculous to most people who are looking for a real leader right now. >> yvette, thank you. matthew dowd, what changed? >> nothing changed. i mean, it's funny that we're saying that donald trump did better. last time, we described him as a bull in a china shop, so, he wasn't a bull in the china shop.

i think when this is all said and done, joe biden won this debate, because he raised his performance. donald trump raised his a bit. it wasn't as much of a foot fight and free for all and so that means that's to joe biden's benefit, when he's going into this ten points up with 50 million people who have already voted. donald trump did nothing to lower joe biden's favorability, so, this is is a net win for joe biden. >> let's get some fact checks right now, as well. i want to bring in cecilia vega. there was debate over that whole family separation policy over the trump administration, those children who are now separated from their parents, over 500 children. president trump trying to continue to push it back on the obama administration and their immigration policy. >> yeah, that's been a go-to move on his front, but these 545 children, the reality is, are still, today separated from their parents. despite repeated efforts to locate their parents. and the reality is, this is a direct result of what many believe to be that failed policy by the trump administration to

separate families at the border. this is a -- nothing short of a traves travesty. these families cannot be located right now. the president was asked, what is your plan to locate and reunite these families. he started talking about the smugglers who we believes are bringing the children to the border. he said he will have a plan. i don't know how you go about reuniting these families when for a long time they've been running ads in places like mexico and central america, trying to locate people to no success. and the issue is that there are a record 32 million registered latinos to vote and this issue could tilt the tables in favor of one candidate or the other in some swing states like arizona and florida. >> cecilia vega, thank you so much. dan abrams, we heard charges from the president, i think for a lot of tepeople, they wouldn' no what he was talking about, the biden personal corruption, hunter biden. most of those charges, unverified. several misleading or untrue. >> right.

so, you've got the billion dollars plus from china, you got the $3.5 million from russia. the key question there is, what's the link to joe biden? right? you're talking about hunter biden's business in china. yes, hunter biden was involved in a fund that raised a lot of money. that did invest in chinese companies. hunter biden says he resigned from the company, says he didn't make a penny. regardless, there's no evidence that joe biden got any of that money. also, on russia, that came from the senate intel report, right? this idea that $3.5 million came from the ex-wife of the mayor of moscow, et cetera. again, the sourcing on that is a little tricky, because hunter biden's lawyer suggests they've confused one company with another and hunter biden wasn't actually involved in that company -- regardless, again, no evidence that joe biden was getting any of that. and because joe biden has released his tax returns, you

can look and you can see whether he would have had any income coming from places like that. the one thing joe biden attacked president trump on, the chinese bank account, of course, president trump says he just opened it to explore opportunities there. >> and the tax returns, as well. martha raddatz, you're in pennsylvania today, you talked to undecided voters. think this changes any minds? >> i don't think it did, george. and there's so few undecided voters. i talked to trump supporters, i said, what is it about president trump, they said they like his strength, they like it when he tells it like it is. now when he tells it like it is, it actually, all the time, isn't like it is, but i think those trump voters saw the man they want and those supporting biden and several of the trump voters i spoke to from 2016, have flipped to biden and they said it's all about character. so, they saw the man they wanted. george? >> and they have already been voting in pennsylvania for about a week or

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heart monitors that let your doctor watch over you, just like you watch over your best friend. another life-changing technology from abbott, so you don't wait for life. you live it. this is an abc news special. your voice, your vote 2020. here again, george stephanopoulos. >> debate season is over. closing in on 11 days now into the final votes of what is almost certain to be a record-breaking american election. that is all for us tonight. "nightline" and your late local news are coming up. i'll see you tomorrow on "gma."

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it was the last time donald trump and joe biden met face to face before they go head to head in the election and they addressed the big issues. >> people deserve to have affordable health care, period. period, period. >> i am the least racist person in this room. >> with the new threat of having their microphones muted if they interrupted the fair bacial expressions spoke volumes. welcome to this special edition of abc 7 news. >> with just 12 days to go until the election the candidates made their final appeal to voters. both promised change and even alluded to what they plan to tell americans on inauguration day. we brought in a team to talk about this for you.